Category: POF

Oodle Report

Posted on March 28, 2007

OodlelogoPRESS RELEASE — Mar 28 — A look at more than 1.4 million singles on Oodle.com showed that 60% of singles do not reveal whether they have or want children and 55% do not specify if they smoke.  For fear that they will appear less desirable! However, data from a recent survey on Engage.com proves this theory wrong. In fact, 88% of those surveyed said they were open to the idea of dating people with children and 63% would consider dating smokers. Mom was right…"honesty is the best policy." Oodle also found Chicago, Boston, and Miami are the best bets for Catholic singles while Miami, New York and L.A. are best for finding Jewish mates. If you don't drink or smoke, the best place to find a mate is Salt Lake City. More than half the over 40 online dating population has been married before.

Mark Brooks: Oodle aggregates profiles from the likes of Engage.com, PlentyofFish and others. Sites can pay to have their profiles featured in order to get more click throughs. Lycos tried something similar a couple of years back but the program failed because it required sites to send a flat file, and pay on a cost per reg basis…and Lycos just didn't send enough leads to be that worthwhile in the end.

Compete.com February Rankings

Posted on March 26, 2007

CompeteOPW — Mar 26 — Since November 2006, Match.com moved up from 4th place to take first spot in February 2007 with 19.6 million user logins, pushing Y! Personals, Singlesnet, eHarmony and PlentyofFish down one spot. BlackPeopleMeet and Manhunt.net enter the top 10 at #7 and #9 respectively. 

Compete.com also provided OPW with data for the average visits per month for February 2007. 

1. Manhunt.com – 13.37
2. PlentyofFish – 10.46
3. BlackPeopleMeet – 7.94
4. Gay.com – 7.15
5. Cupid.com – 6.88

Compete.com February Rankings

Posted on March 26, 2007

CompeteOPW — Mar 26 — Since November 2006, Match.com moved up from 4th place to take first spot in February 2007 with 19.6 million user logins, pushing Y! Personals, Singlesnet, eHarmony and PlentyofFish down one spot. BlackPeopleMeet and Manhunt.net enter the top 10 at #7 and #9 respectively. 

Compete.com also provided OPW with data for the average visits per month for February 2007. 

1. Manhunt.com – 13.37
2. PlentyofFish – 10.46
3. BlackPeopleMeet – 7.94
4. Gay.com – 7.15
5. Cupid.com – 6.88

Advertising Driven Dating Sites

Posted on March 21, 2007

WEBPRO NEWS — Mar 21 — It's amazing how many startups plan on making money via advertising and haven't done this basic math. Sure PlentyofFish has gone nuclear. But he's a one-guy business who is in a highly engaged audience type (dating). He says he makes $10,000 a day or more from his Google ads.

The full article was originally published at WebPro News, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: The average internet dating user in the U.S.A. expects to pay for an online dating service, these days. But that could change. If enough free dating services launch and somehow get to critical mass then users might revert to expecting dating sites to be free. Paid dating sites have to outperform existing and free dating services.  That means; removing dead/unresponsive profiles, cancelling affiliate accounts of any affiliates that practice date baiting, and finding more and better ways of dealing with scammers. 

 

Advertising Driven Dating Sites

Posted on March 21, 2007

WEBPRO NEWS — Mar 21 — It's amazing how many startups plan on making money via advertising and haven't done this basic math. Sure PlentyofFish has gone nuclear. But he's a one-guy business who is in a highly engaged audience type (dating). He says he makes $10,000 a day or more from his Google ads.

The full article was originally published at WebPro News, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: The average internet dating user in the U.S.A. expects to pay for an online dating service, these days. But that could change. If enough free dating services launch and somehow get to critical mass then users might revert to expecting dating sites to be free. Paid dating sites have to outperform existing and free dating services.  That means; removing dead/unresponsive profiles, cancelling affiliate accounts of any affiliates that practice date baiting, and finding more and better ways of dealing with scammers. 

 

Just In – Nielsen//NetRatings February U.S. Rankings

Posted on March 16, 2007

Logo_nielsenOPW — Mar 16 — We've just updated the internet dating rankings. The changes are: Match moves down from #1 to #3 and MSN Dating (powered by Match) moves up one spot to #4, kicking Singlesnet down one spot to #5. eHarmony moves up two spots to #6 pushing Mate1 and American Singles down one spot. – Mark Brooks

Just In – Nielsen//NetRatings February U.S. Rankings

Posted on March 16, 2007

Logo_nielsenOPW — Mar 16 — We've just updated the internet dating rankings. The changes are: Match moves down from #1 to #3 and MSN Dating (powered by Match) moves up one spot to #4, kicking Singlesnet down one spot to #5. eHarmony moves up two spots to #6 pushing Mate1 and American Singles down one spot. – Mark Brooks

Other Free Sites

Posted on March 14, 2007

THE PARADIGM SHIFT — Mar 13 — I've never made a list of free sites, there are just soo many of them and more pop up every day. But with so many of them coming along, someone is bound to create something innovative that catches on. Here are the biggest sites I could find via the overture inventory tool. Are there any others out there with more then 2500 searches a month on their domain? Number after the domain is searches per month.

Plentyoffish.com  328,648
matchdoctor.com 14,779
Bookofmatches.com 11,373
okcupid.com  6,438
connectingsingles.com  3,566
justsayhi.com 3,469
smooch.com  2,697

Other Free Sites

Posted on March 14, 2007

THE PARADIGM SHIFT — Mar 13 — I've never made a list of free sites, there are just soo many of them and more pop up every day. But with so many of them coming along, someone is bound to create something innovative that catches on. Here are the biggest sites I could find via the overture inventory tool. Are there any others out there with more then 2500 searches a month on their domain? Number after the domain is searches per month.

Plentyoffish.com  328,648
matchdoctor.com 14,779
Bookofmatches.com 11,373
okcupid.com  6,438
connectingsingles.com  3,566
justsayhi.com 3,469
smooch.com  2,697

Increase Online Trust

Posted on March 9, 2007

Trust_webMASTER NEW MEDIA — Mar 8 — At the end of 2006, Time magazine decided that its person of the year was "You". Yes, You. All the You’s that create and rate content on sites such as MySpace, Wikipedia and YouTube. In Web 2.0 the issue of trust has moved away from the people that run the site towards the people that populate it. The issue of "Can I trust this site?" still exists, but the new issue, "Can I trust the people on it?" is now equally important. The main difference now is that content is being generated by anyone and then being rated by anyone. How can you be sure that what other users write is true? To ensure site visitors continue to trust your site, you need to ensure users are who they say they are. You can:

  • E-mail an activation link
  • Send a text message with an activation code
  • Send the activation code to a home or business address
  • Only allow site visitors access to content/functionality if recommended by a registered user (LinkedIn, the online career network, does this)
  • Show people you know their IP address when they’re logged in
  • Collect users’ credit card details
  • Allow users to rate a person
  • Set up a reference system to highlight respected members
  • Have real time face-to-face interaction ( e.g. Skype on eBay)

Original article by Mark McElhaw published on March, 2007 as "You Who? – Trust in Web 2.0" on Webcredible. FULL ARTICLE @ MNM